


This Life

by conceptstage



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Disaster siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 13:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16682935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptstage/pseuds/conceptstage
Summary: Beau gets a letter from her father and it goes over about as well as you'd expect.





	This Life

Caleb awoke to a crash in the hall and sat up suddenly with fire licking around his fingers. Nott yawned and rubbed her eye. “What’s going on?” she mumbled tiredly.

Caleb climbed out of bed and pulled on his coat. “Stay here, I’m going to check it out. Only come out if I scream, okay?” She hummed in assent and then laid her head back down.

Caleb opened the door and he heard stomping down the stairs and a very familiar voice muttering to herself as she headed towards the front door of the mansion he’d conjured. “Motherfucker… goddamn piece of shit, fucking jackass bastard…” The front door slammed shut and Caleb briefly looked back at Nott to find that she had fallen back to sleep.

Silently, he stepped out of the door and shut it behind him, walking down the stairs in his socks. He rooted around in the pile of shoes by the door (his mansion had a strict ‘no shoes on in the house’ policy) and slipped his on before heading outside.

He saw Beau across the clearing, taking her frustrations out on a tree.  _ Whap whack whack _ , she hit it repeatedly with her staff, cursing angrily. “Beau?” he asked, shutting the front door.

Beau cried out in rage. “Motherfucker!” she screamed, smacking her staff against the tree so hard that the staff cracked in the middle and fell to the ground in two pieces. She huffed and curled her hands into fists, choosing to punch the tree until her knuckles started to bleed instead of using the sad little half of her staff still tight in her hand.

“Beau!” Caleb exclaimed when he saw the blood. “Beauregard, stop it!” he ran over and grabbed her wrist. He expected her to yank away from him but instead she did the opposite. She turned into him and pressed her face into his shoulder. She didn’t move, didn’t say anything… just stood completely still in his arms. He hesitated but reached his other hand around to pat her back. “Do you… Do you wanna talk about it?” The answer to that question was usually ‘Hell no and if you ask again I’ll smash your face in’ but tonight it seemed that Beau had been replaced by a pod person so he may as well try his luck.

Instead of speaking she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, which she pressed to his chest. “I picked this up from the post office this morning. I just read it.”

Caleb cleared his throat and started to read the letter out loud. “Dear Beauregard. It has come to my attention that you are no longer at Cobalt as we agreed.”

She snorted in derision into the lapels of his coat. “I was kidnapped, by the way,” she said, though Caleb already knew that. “He hired people to kidnap me and take me there, I didn’t agree to shit.”

Caleb nodded and continued. “My hope was that the teachings at Cobalt would rehabilitate you and that one day you might be able to come home to take your place as the head of house, though it is now clear to me that you will always be a disappointment. There is one matter of business that must be attended to, please return to the house before New Years and sign away your rights as heir to the Lionett estate to your sister. If you do not, I will disown you and you will never be allowed to contact us again. Best regards, Sir Eston Lionett.” Caleb sighed and the forest around them fell into silence. It seemed that even the crickets were too shocked to sing. “This is your father?”

She just nodded and didn’t pull away. “Yep. That’s the man who raised me. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?” She sighed heavily. “I should sign,” she said. “I don’t need their money, I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with that business. I don’t know why it’s making me so…” Finally she pulled away from him and reached down to pick up the two halves of her staff. “Rationally, I know that it’s the best option but I’m not feeling very fucking rational tonight.”

“It’s morning.” Caleb winced. It was definitely not the best thing to say at this moment but it had slipped out. 

Instead of getting angry at him, Beau huffed a laugh and shook her head. “Same old, Caleb.”

He reached towards her and gently took one half of the staff from her fist. “Let me Mend this for you.” She just nodded silently and handed him the other half. He started by drawing a circle in the dirt and sat the two pieces in the center, then he began his spell. 

“Can you do that on my life?” she asked. He could tell it was meant to be in jest but there was genuine sadness in her eyes.

“Do you believe your life is broken?” he asked instead of answering.

“Hey, don’t get all therapist on me, man. I love this life with you guys. I didn’t mean anything by it, I just… This isn’t the life I planned. This isn’t what my life was supposed to look like.”

“Says who?”

“Says my father.”

“And he’s an authority on you, is he?”

“He doesn't know shit about me. I found out when I was seven that my father didn’t know when my birthday was and all the presents he’d ever given me were from his assistant.”

Caleb shrugged as the spell came to an end and the staff fused back together. “Then what right does he have to decide what life you should lead?”

Beau took the staff from him and spun it around deftly in her fingers. “When did you get so insightful?” She got to her feet and took his hand to help him up as well. When she tried to slip her hand out of his, he made a split second decision and held on. She looked at him, confused and a little surprised.

“Beau... he did not deserve you. The more I learn of your father the more I want to punch him in the face.”

“You would do that for me? My father’s a world class wrestler, he’d crush you.”

Caleb blinked. “ _ Ja _ , in that case, I would try and probably fail.”

Beau laughed out loud and they started walking back into the mansion, leaving the letter crushed in the dirt with Beau’s wet footprint stamped across it.


End file.
